University of Montevallo — Main Hall

On the night of February 4, 1908, Condie Cunningham and her roommate were making hot chocolate over a chafing dish in their room in Main Hall, then the Alabama Girls' Industrial School. As they cleared up at curfew the alcohol fuel spilled and caught, and her nightgown caught fire. She died of her injuries two days later, at seventeen. The case made headlines, the college president opened an investigation, and a water tower and fire escapes were added to the building later that year. Students soon began to say that a face surrounded by streaming hair had appeared in the grain of her door, and that it returned when the door was replaced. The door is now kept in the university library. Students in Main Hall have reported running footsteps and screams in the corridor at night ever since.